The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has proposed new rules that would effectively end the public’s ability to challenge improperly granted patents at the Patent Office itself. We need EFF supporters to file public comments opposing these rules this week. The USPTO is moving quickly, and staying silent will only help those who profit from abusive patents.
Rectangle is obviously the standard shape of phone and had been since before mobile phones basically.
Rounding of corners is standard engineering practice, sharp edges are a weak point, rounding them off increases the overall strength.
What is described is not aesthetics or ornamentation, it’s an engineering imperative obvious in airplane windows, car windows, diaries (many have their corners rounded anticipating wear and tear), pockets (many pockets are rounded off instead of sharply square to prevent the corner failing).
Apple could perhaps argue nobody had rounded the corners as much as they did in earlier phones, without further altering the design beyond a rectangle. But that shouldn’t give them such a wide patent, a narrow patent on the specific shape would be sufficient.
Another way to put this. If the shape you’re trying to patent has a css property dedicated to it (corner-radius) it may not be sufficiently specific.
I would have to look into the actual patent and file wrapper, but presumably it didn’t cover just any rounding of rectangular corners, but as you said, a defined range.
Where bad patents get through prosecution, they are problematic, be they design patents or utility patents, but design patents in general are not even a blip on the radar of what needs to be fixed in our IP system imo. As a general rule of thumb, they are in fact fairly narrow. Meanwhile, pharma patents very much need focused and thoughtful revisions, and IP around software needs to be reworked from the ground up basically, creating special rules for patents and dropping the legislatively declared copyright framework entirely. The problem is that reporting on IP is fucking awful so people say things like “ohmyglob this design patents doesn’t even have real claims” even though that’s literally how they are structured and enforcing the right requires a pretty intensive investigation of the drawings and line patterns therein.
But, sure, I’ll give that maybe Apple’s design patent in this case was overly broad. I’m not particularly interested in defending Apple’s IP.
I largely agree, software patents are a joke for sure.